Capo Dei Capi (Secrets of the Famiglia Part 1) novel Chapter 47

I was raised to like what I do. To be proud of who I am, A Catelli.

The day I killed my first man, I wasn't even 9. A burglar got into our house and held a gun against Deno's head. My mother tried to get the burglar to take her. The asshole shot her. My mother was brave and managed to get him on the leg. Deno ran away from the intruder, but I was so filled with anger that I took my mother's Glock and clipped him 5 times.

Only to get outside and find the soldiers who were protecting our home, sleeping. My father killed them once he got home. I stood there and watched. My mother survived only to die 3 years later by a bullet to her head.

My brother was barely 8 at the time, and Anya was just a baby. Deno remembers it in his dreams. I have lived that fucked up day for years.

My father told me one saying that helped him along the years to deal with the nightmare, 'it is what it is.'

Today those same words came back to me; only I wasn't burying my mother.

There is no excuse for what happened to my youngest brother, Lorenzo. He was the untainted one from all of us. His future was supposed to be bright. He was going to be the normal one, well as normal as he could be in this dark, twisted world, we were cursed into.

Deno and I knew he was different from the rest of us. Lorenzo wasn't perfect. His hands were tainted with death at a young age. A young Prince protecting his friends in another King's territory didn't come without a bloody price.

Deno kept tabs on the 5 sacrificial lambs who were sent to Chicago to prevent a war my father started. My brother survived that fuck fest only to die in the place he was supposed to be safe.

Deno and I would find the ones responsible and make them pay. Even knowing the blood we'll spill in his name is something he would detest to, won't bring him back, we will get our revenge.

It will make Deno and I sleep better. Revenge was never meant to placate the dead but used as a form of therapy by the ones alive.

I didn't see the need to verbalize all of that to Sartini's daughter. When she said sorry, the only thing I thought about saying was, 'it is what it is!'

I wasn't going to lie to her. Nor was I going to inform the half-blood that I loved my brother, but never got the chance to really know him. Deno took on the role of big brother. Truth is, I couldn't look at Lorenzo without seeing the reason behind Deno's misery.

"What the fuckin' hell were you thinking, putting claims on Aliyana?" Deno says in his low, bored tone, as he hands me some Brandy.

Knowing by the end of the night Deno and I would be borrowing happiness from tomorrow one way or the other, I take a big sip of the smooth dark liquid.

"I've waited long enough. Moretti doesn't want the deal. He's stalling."

Deno takes a seat on the rust-colored leather sofa. I've just arrived at my Penthouse, and already I want to leave. The modern man cave is not the most desirable place to spend my time, considering it was designed by Lorenzo.

The drive to my Manor and back to see my father, however, isn't going to work for me today. I needed to be close to the city. By the end of the night, if all panned out, I would know who beat my cousin by my fucking dock. Which means I would have to make an appearance at the warehouse once they pick the fuckers up.

"Give Moretti time. You can't marry Aliyana, Marco. If I was Capo, sure, but our father is. DeMarco isn't going to give a fuck about who you marry so, don't waste your time with him either. And Sartini will never agree to you marrying his daughter. The leverage we got on him won't sway the fucker, not yet. She's our second choice."

"She's promoted to first."